Dale, "Robert Nixon and Police Torture in Chicago, 1871–1971"

In 2015, Chicago became the first city in the
United States to create a reparations fund for victims of police
torture, after investigations revealed that former Chicago police
commander Jon Burge tortured numerous suspects in the 1970s, ’80s, and
’90s. But claims of police torture have even deeper roots in Chicago. In
the late 19th century, suspects maintained that Chicago police officers
put them in sweatboxes or held them incommunicado until they confessed
to crimes they had not committed. In the first decades of the 20th
century, suspects and witnesses stated that they admitted guilt only
because Chicago officers beat them, threatened them, and subjected them
to “sweatbox methods.” Those claims continued into the 1960s.

In Robert Nixon and Police Torture in Chicago, 1871–1971,
Elizabeth Dale uncovers the lost history of police torture in Chicago
between the Chicago Fire and 1971, tracing the types of torture claims
made in cases across that period. To show why the criminal justice
system failed to adequately deal with many of those allegations of
police torture, Dale examines one case in particular, the 1938 murder
trial of Robert Nixon. Nixon’s case is famous for being the basis for
the novel Native Son, by Richard Wright. Dale considers the part
of Nixon’s story that Wright left out: that the legal system mistreated
Nixon’s claim that he only confessed after being strung up by his wrists
and beaten. This original study will appeal to scholars and students
interested in the history of criminal justice, and general readers
interested in Midwest history, criminal cases, and the topic of police
torture.

A blurb from Michael J. Pfeifer:

“Dale offers a highly readable, well-researched
analysis of an important criminal case with a fresh perspective. What is
especially impressive is the book’s accessibility and its use of the
particular case of Robert Nixon as a window into the history of police
torture in the US.”